He hurried
up to it, but seemed to strike against the wall, and woke. He was
in bed, but his heart was beating a terribly quick march. His
pocket-book was in his hand: he struck a light, and searching in
it, found the missing paper.
The next night, he told his dream to his father and Mr Simon, and
they had a talk about dreams and apparitions; then all three pored
over the paper, but far from arriving at any conclusion, seemed
hardly to get a glimpse of anything that could be called light upon
its meaning.
CHAPTER XLII.
OBSTRUCTION.
All this time Cosmo had never written again to Joan; both his
father and he thought it better the former only should for the
present keep up the correspondence. But months had passed without
their hearing from her. The laird had written the third time, and
received no answer.
The day was now close upon them when the last of their land would
be taken, leaving them nothing but the kitchen-garden--a piece of
ground of about half an acre, the little terraced flower-garden to
the south of the castle, and the croft tenanted by James Gracie.
They applied to Lord Lick-my-loof to grant them a lease of the one
field next the castle, which the laird with the help of the two
women had cultivated the spring before, but he would not--his
resentment being as strong as ever, and his design deeper than they
saw.
The formal proceedings took their legal course; and upon and after
a certain day Lord Lick-my-loof might have been seen from not a few
of the windows of the castle, walking the fields to the north and
east, and giving orders to his bailiff concerning them.
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